Jane Austen letter sold at auction

Almost exactly 200 years to the day of Jane Austen's death in 1817, a letter written by the author to her favourite niece, Anna Lefroy, was sold at auction at Sotheby's London on 11th July for £162,500.

The note was a light hearted commentary of Lady Maclairn, the Victim of Villainy, by her contemporary Rachel Hunter, which Austen described as "most tiresome and prosy".

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The letter dates from 29-30 October 1812, just after the publication of Sense and Sensibility and around the time that the manuscript of Pride and Prejudice was submitted for publication. Sotherby's said the letter provides "a rare insight into how Austen thought about fiction."

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Using Austen's famed satirical style, the letter is written as if it is addressed to Hunter, and she even makes fun of her own writing style, speaking about herself in the third person. When talking about how Hunter dealt with the arrival of a handsome stranger in her book, she says "it is certainly not hard to imagine that Austen could have made much of an episode."

Dr Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby's Specialist in Books and Manuscripts said the letter "gives a strong sense of what it would have been like to be Jane Austen's friend, of the types of conversations she had with those closest to her. The vast majority of her surviving letters talk about her day-to-day life, so to have a letter like we do here, that talks specifically about writing and shows her engaging with the popular literature of the day, is hugely significant."